Novels by StaryUll

The growl stopped abruptly, replaced by a far more terrifying silence. Not an empty silence, but a predatory one, a stillness that signaled something was preparing to strike. Elios was still kneeling before the blood writing. His trembling hand touched the cold concrete floor. His fingertip traced the letter O of the name his wife had written. The concrete surface felt rough, sticky with blood that had half-dried. Something was left there, not just a stain, but the residual emotion of someone who knew their end was near, yet refused to leave without a trace. “Elios…” Vera’s voice was soft behind him. Her robotic, authoritative tone was gone. She stood about two meters behind Elios, her energy pistol raised, the muzzle slowly sweeping the darkness. The sensors on her visor flickered erratically. “We are not alone,” she continued, more tense. “Motion sensors are detecting air displacement. Get up, quickly.” Elios didn’t answer. His shoulders rose and fell

The light was painful. White, sterile, and cold. Not a light that gave life, but one that stripped everything bare without empathy. Elios squinted as he stepped across the steel threshold. His pupils contracted fiercely, forced to adapt from the absolute darkness of the sewer to the nerve-piercing clinical brightness. For a moment, the world felt flat, like a black-and-white photo dragged into overexposure. His Shotgun lowered half an inch. His finger remained on the trigger guard. Reflexes didn't die just because a room looked clean. Behind him, Vera stopped moving. Not because she feared dirt. The smell of sewage was gone, replaced by the scent of old antiseptic and cold metal. A smell belonging only to hospitals and morgues. “This…” she whispered. Her voice was small, almost lost in the vastness of the room. They stood in a giant hall, three stories high, as wide as an aircraft hangar. The glossy white ceramic floor reflected their shadows cr

The smell down here was no longer the scent of ozone, magic, or portal radiation. It was a much more honest smell. The smell of humanity. The odor of waste that had fermented for five years in the darkness, mixed with mud, old blood, and death that was never buried. Elios landed with a wet splash in ankle-deep water. Blackish-green fluid splattered onto his shins. He shook his boots, but the sludge only clung tighter to the soles. Above them, the giant drainage pipe opening, which served as their entrance from the crater wall, now looked small, like an embarrassing pinhole. The light from outside was just a pale dot, almost meaningless. “Welcome to the Sector 4 VIP Lounge,” Elios muttered, switching on the tactical flashlight on his left shoulder. The white light sliced through the darkness, revealing curved brick walls overgrown with greenish bioluminescent fungi. The structure of the old sewer was like the esophagus of a giant creature rotting from the inside.

Elios’s 1200 cc Cruiser engine roared harshly, shattering the dead silence at the Sector 4 Border. The sound was unnatural here, like a chainsaw cutting through the cold, toxic air. Ahead of him, the Quarantine Gate stood twenty meters tall. The razor-wire fence was layered with electrified steel armor, while automated guard towers on the left and right immediately locked onto the target. Machine gun barrels rotated, their optical systems aligning the crosshairs precisely on Elios’s head. The indicator lights turned red. But the shots never came. Someone stood right in the middle of the road, blocking the gate barrier. A woman. She wore a tight, pearl-white tactical bodysuit with gold accents, the official uniform of the Sanctum Division Intelligence. Over it, a long black trench coat billowed in the toxic Sector 4 wind. A short, silver-plated pistol was holstered low on her right thigh, more standard equipment than a primary weapon. Her black bob was precisely, geometri

The sky was not blue. It was red, the red of flayed, burning flesh. Elios stood in the middle of hell. Not a metaphorical hell, but Sector 4, five years ago, on the day the world collapsed and his life died along with it. The air vibrated with heat that melted the asphalt. Skyscrapers collapsed slowly, folding in on themselves like failed concrete origami. The screams of thousands of people merged into a single, ear-splitting high note, an endless symphony of suffering. “Elios! Help me!” That voice. The voice that always came whenever he closed his eyes. Elios ran. His legs felt heavy, as if embedded in boiling tar sludge. He headed toward the ruins of their second-floor apartment, a place that had once been warm, with a pot of lavender on the windowsill. Now, only smoking debris and fire remained. “Lyra!” he screamed, his voice breaking. “Answer me!” He saw the hand. A pale hand jutting out from beneath a giant concrete beam. A simple silver ring encir

The Trans-Continental train let out a long hiss, its metal screaming as if forced to stop by an invisible hand. Steel wheels screeched wildly before finally locking. Red emergency lights flickered, sweeping over the pale, sweat-streaked faces of the passengers. The car door opened with a violent jolt. Division IV Cleanup Teams entered in unison, black from helmet to boot, weapons raised, their movements fast and mechanical like a swarm of worker ants trained for only one purpose: clean up, eliminate, silence. Elios stepped down last. His leg was dragging, every step pulling pain he no longer cared about. His trousers were torn and wet with blood that was already turning black. His right hand was wrapped in a crude bandage, red stains seeping out, dripping onto the station floor. Several medics tried to approach, but he waved them off. He had to leave. Now. A Paladin Lieutenant blocked his path, his silver armor still clean, his face tense but obedient. "Age